NPkohtaamattomat

NPkohtaamattomat is a term used in corpus linguistics and theoretical syntax to denote noun phrases (NPs) that have not been attested in a given data source or corpus, despite being compatible with the language’s grammar. The term combines NP, the standard abbreviation for noun phrase, with kohtaamattomat, Finnish for “unencountered” or “unattested.” It is employed to discuss distributional gaps between the NPs a grammar would permit and those actually observed in empirical data.

In research practice, NPkohtaamattomat help researchers evaluate grammar models, lexicon coverage, and register differences. They can indicate whether a gap arises from sampling bias, historical change, or pragmatic and semantic constraints that make certain NPs unlikely in a given context. NPkohtaamattomat are particularly relevant when constructing or testing probabilistic parsers, lexical acquisition algorithms, and cross-linguistic typologies, where the predicted space of possible NPs may exceed what is found in a corpus.

Identification and interpretation involve cross-corpus comparisons, generation of theoretically possible NP structures, and verification through native-speaker judgments or targeted data collection. Challenges include distinguishing truly unattested forms from underrepresented ones, accounting for genre, domain, neologisms, and the influence of discourse context on NP usage. Researchers typically treat NPkohtaamattomat as a diagnostic tool for assessing coverage and assumptions in linguistic descriptions and NLP systems.

See also: attested NP, lexical gaps, corpus linguistics, grammatical theory, cross-linguistic syntax.